The Screaming
by ElTwiggo
Summary: After reading Brooks' exceptionally vivid accounts of Post-Z War life, and of tales from The War, I was captivated and enticed to try my own hand at it. The story is short, and simple yet my aim was to be exceptionally vivid in creating a dystopic version of a world we know so well, often times horror comes through atmosphere, such as the death of our world.


**New England, Rhode Island**  
Johnathon Ravies is barely in his twenties, yet he looks far older. Deep, dark bags line the underneath of his eyes and his forehead is untimely creased. His thick thatch of dark brown hair hangs loosely past his eyebrows, occasionally flickering into his eyes, which he moves back again, seemingly without noticing. He appears distracted, resting the side of his head into his open palm multiple times as though there is something constantly pressing on his mind.

So,

So – he cuts in

So, what do you remember?

What do I remember? What do I remember... - he repeats this twice more, each time slower and more wistfully than the last. Eventually, it turns from rhetoric to an almost meaningless statement.

A few seconds pass until I clear my throat to re-initiate his response. As I do so, he perks up and begins his account.

I remember, the screaming. Yeah, the screaming more than anything else. Other people I've spoke to, or have tried to speak to me I guess would be a more accurate dissertation, said they remember the smoke, the fire, well the two go hand in hand. Others say their most vivid memory was the faces, the faces of, not the dead, not even the living. But the faces of the dying. The transitional phase, where the loved one becomes one of those creatures that want nothing more than to tear into pieces. Where the beautiful, loving life that you cling to so dearly in these times, slips away, sometimes slowly, agonizingly paced as though purposefully drawn out just to emphasize the notion of just how fucked you, they and everything and everyone else is. Sometimes fast, their life, so underminingly fragile, fades within seconds and the face of your neighbor, your brother, your mom, hell even your elementary school teacher, yep that was one of 'em, becomes the twisted countenance of the legions of the rotting, shrieking damned. To watch the soft, placid features so often drawn with fear, perspiring, streaked with dirt, gore, tears and yet so utterly and inexplicably human, so full of emotion, drain away as though someone pulled a stopper from the back of the head and let it fill with nothing but blind hatred. As the countless different deathbed emotions became a uniform expression, twisting, snarling features, teeth constantly bared and ready to tear out a throat, a chunk of flesh, an eye, anything the opportunistic demons could grab a hold of in a split second. Yeah I can see why that was a favorite; but for me, the screaming is truly what sticks to mind.  
I remember, running. I can't remember why, and nor do I care; it took me a while to let go, but that was a memory of days gone by; meaningless days filled with video games, high school, wishing I could be good enough for that hot Senior chick, you know, the usual angsty bullshit. It's something I, nor, I doubt, the world can ever return to, so I try to remember little of my life before It happened. I think it's for the best. Yet still, I found myself running. Fast. I don't think I had ever run so fast before in my life! My older sister was the athlete, yet from some unknown strength, or perhaps her anxiety was getting the better of her, I found myself keeping pace with her, and my father. There was only the three of us, my mother died when I was far younger – I don't remember anything about her. Perhaps she was the lucky one. Down Sycamore Ave. We ran, I tripped, stumbled yet didn't fall. I remember at that point, my mind was surging erratically. I should've been focusing on where I was going, on what the fuck was going on, yet I seemed to be running on autopilot. Thinking about things that were, for the most part, entirely irrelevant. I thought of how unlike the movies this was. How, nobody seemed to be falling over, helplessly falling prey to the swarming Zs that were desperately trying to chase us down. There was panic, Jesus Christ there was panic. Anarchy is as apt a description as any, yet I don't think it does it justice. Anarchy portrays a sense of control; there is no government, no law, people fend for themselves and in this respect it was true. Yet there was no_ human _control. People were not fleeing nor acting for their own interest, other than that of basic survival. There was nothing to be gained; strangely enough I saw few atrocities asides from one man throwing a mere boy perhaps aged 3 or 4 into a crowd of the undead to save his own skin, which was timely ripped from his sorry hide merely a matter of seconds later on the same road. Yet there was no looting, what was the point? There was no rape, again the same question. No age old quarrels were settled with the abandonment of law, bygones were bygones in this age; there was nothing to gain except surviving by any means necessary. There was no society, at least, not in those flurried, fleeting few days of fear and panic and self preservation. There was no society, because there was no government to enforce it; namely there was no overarching dictator, no oligarchy, no totalitarianism or "Democracy" as it was dubbed at some point, to point us in the right direction of mutual gain. This meant there was no community, nobody worked for the other's gain; self preservation was all there was, that of you, and your family. Materialism became obsolete, useless, pretty objects were discarded; in reality they serve no pragmatic purpose. And in a land where princes were no more likely to survive than paupers, such things held no social status nor monetary value and as such were thrown aside as casually as the stripped corpses of which the undead had finished desiccating. Dammit, Marx would've been proud I guess, right before the beardy old bastard would've died from being pulled down into a developing pit of shrieking, writhing cold bodies, probably ironically by his defining feature. My sister was screaming, she didn't stop. My dad was yelling for my sister to stop screaming which of course didn't help. The avenues of my neighborhood were all uniform, modern districts, this was advantageous due to the simplicity of leaving, yet this simplicity was its own Achilles's Heel; of course everyone was running the same way; the dead were all running after them, and God damn anybody who ran against the tides of encroaching death. Stampede was followed by plague, in possible the bizarrest rat race in the history of human kind; a Grand Prix with every world stage happening in unison, with survival being the only prize, and death, damnation or worse for those who lost. Darwin could have only dreamed of such a potent example of his natural selection theories; a rather poignant lesson of practical teaching for any Jehovah's Witness, I'm sure.

As such, the screaming burned through my ears. The magnitude and direction of the noise was deafening, it was almost impossible to make out human from dead in the darkening din. Every scream was the same, "Help" they cried, "Help", "Help", "Help!" it was either this or just intermittent sobs echoing through the linear streets, coupled with yelps of shock for those just coming to grips with the reality of the horrifying race and wails of agony, for those who, one can only hope, were wallowing in their death throes.  
And as we ran, the screaming, tumultuous echoes of those living, and those who were not so quick, in both senses of the word, tore through my young, impressionable mind. The shriek of a young mother, infant torn from her gouged arms, desperately, pointlessly, grasping for her child until her hand, the only exposed piece of flesh under the hive of the dead covering her, feasting on her dying body, went limp and was dragged bloodily into the foray with the rest of the cadaver. The agonized wail of a boy I knew, yet whose name I forget, and who was no older than I, kicking limply at the snarling, hideous beast baring down upon him whom I recognized as his mother until the light flickered out of his cold, gray eyes. I heard the racking sobs of a newly wed, still in his marital suit, presumably from the evening before, coupling his dying love in his arms as the breath went out of her, till death did them part and, as any good, American marriage will do, literally bit him on the ass.

All the while, the cries of my sister and the hurried yells of my father were consistently battering my eardrums, the chaos was almost too much. The whoosh of fires breaking out in multiple apartments, and a grocery shop spat smoke into my face, a few hissing, burning embers singed my eyebrows, the venom of some Lamia-esque creation, sanguineous and full of hatred, melting through my epidermis and the endothelial layer of my cheek -

He caresses the side of his face wistfully and then proceeds to talk again -

There was a cacophony of sounds playing around, as though somebody had smashed a load of records together and created some sort of Rolph Harris mashup of every day life sounds, twisted into the exact antithesis of what you would imagine, and put it on slow with some sections broken and flurriedly high pitched. An Orchestra of The Dead, I remember somebody calling it; and it was fitting. Yet, for every new onomatopoeic sound that came into my hazed recognition, it was the sound that went missing that made me stop. For the whole ten minutes, hour, 30 seconds, however long we were running, my sister had not stopped screaming. Iron Lung we had jokingly called her back home; and now she was silent. And nowhere to be seen. "Dad!" I cried, "Dad! DAD! Martha's not here!" I saw my Dad's dazed look of recognition as to what I had said, so intent on escaping was he, and no doubt for us as well, he took a moment to actually realize that his daughter was missing. His face dropped, and he turned round and sprinted back the way we had came, remember what I said about He who would run against the tide? I never saw him again. The tragic irony, that is so befitting with all these tales, and no doubt why it is oh-so-publishable, is that my sister was in fact 20 feet to our left, the crowds and fucked lighting, from the fires and the fact it was 6:00 A.M. On an overcast day, coupled with panicked reasoning and poor logic under pressure meant that we did not search our peripherals for my sister, my Dad just running off, a hero, yet a poor fool, through the darkness that enveloped him into, what I can only hope now was nothingness. Yet there she was, grabbed by the arm, a hand clamped over her mouth to silence the screams that were no doubt rife within her. The man, I recognized as Vicar Pasternak; the new Polish Vicar who had just recently transferred to our local Parish. My dad has often grumbled, seeing the Vicar look at my, tall, athletic and let's be honest, not too modest late sister in a way that, "was not entirely Holy", as I recall. The Vicar saw me, frozen, the undead flocking towards us in merely the next street over, waiting, unsure what to do. He grinned, a wicked flash of pointed teeth, as to me his skin turned a deep shade of crimson, his swarthy patch of dark head flicked on either side of his crown and beneath the dark priest's gown, I could have sworn I saw the flicker of a long, tail-like appendage. The vicious, sanguineous grin stretched from pointed ear, to pointed, vermilion ear, and I remember the roar he gave, my sister's eyes, wild and terrified, bulging to a point I had not seen before, not even upon this night of judgement; in style befitting of such extreme, religious evil he quoth -

He stands up, he places his hands into the air, adopting a noble, mighty pose as though speaking to a vast enclave of people -

"My name is Legion! For we – are – MANY!"

My sister screamed at me to save her, having bitten past the hand that restrained her, and believe me, I would have. But the maddened holy man did not notice the blood pouring down his arm, he seized her with an iron grip and dove straight into the horde that had swarmed round the corner.

Needless to say, I ran. I would like to say it was because of pragmatism; I knew in my heart of hearts they were both dead, yet I know I ran for I was a coward; an 11 year old boy, yet a coward none the less. The impeccable timing of the Vicar disintegrated the encroaching horde into a feast, truly they were to dine in Hell that night. It gave me the time I had lost with my impracticability. Yet as I turned and fled, with tears in my eyes, I vowed that there is no God, for how could God allow such evil. And to this day, the screaming stays with me... always.


End file.
